Johanna Garth is the author of The Persephone Campbell Series; a modern take on the myth of Hades and Persephone. Johanna lives in McLean, Virginia with her husband and two children.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Airline Linguistics

One of my best friends recently returned from one of those family inspired, crazy holiday travel dances.

Portland to Ithaca with a brief layover in Newark via redeye. To keep things interesting she brought her children and upon landing in Ithaca embarked on a two hour drive through icy snow.
We were catching up over coffee and she was telling me about the highlights of her trip, but it was the return piece that made my ears perk up. Two feet of snow overnight was her first clue that thirty minutes to make a connecting flight wouldn't be sufficient. She called the airline and was told she had a "valid connection".

"I understand it's a valid connection, but the plane is going to sit on the runway for at least thirty minutes for de-icing. We'll miss our connection."

"I'm sorry ma'am, but it is a valid connection," was the response.

Early the next morning she returned to Ithaca to be told her children didn't have seats on the flight. "So you're overbooked," she told the airline attendant.

"No ma'am. We had two extra passengers who we removed so now the flight is at-capacity."

"Yes! Those two extra passengers were my children and so you're overbooked."

"No. We've removed the two extra passengers in order to make the flight at-capacity."

As a writer, this purposeful twisting of language to alter reality fascinates me. It's as though I bought a box of chocolates, eaten a few and then decided to return them.

"Ma'am, it appears you've eaten a few of these chocolates."

"I just removed a couple and now I need my box to be replenished to an at-capacity state.
"We can't replace the chocolates you've eaten."

"I haven't eaten them. I've removed them. You can't expect me to accept this as a valid sale when the box hasn't been filled to capacity."

Silly, right?

But as long as the airlines are pushing forward with their new form of linguistic reasoning it makes me think we should push back, lobby for codified language that will redefine and specify the true meaning of phrases like valid connection, overbooked flights and adequate aisle seat space for elbows and knees.

After that we can turn our attentions to the vendors of chocolates and those cute little Girl Scouts who sell cookies. I happen to have one such cookie pusher living in my house and I'm sure she'd be happy to engage in a little alternate reality linguistic reasoning. Any takers?

That would make me nuts. I can feel an adrenaline rush right now just thinking about it. I don't think I should read books anymore about people who fight monsters. It makes threshold for nonsense pretty low, and I think it might be rubbing off on me because I think I'd have been tempted to punch someone. lol

Logic and humor is also missing in some transactions with airline personnel. I found that out when my 7 year old and were traveling via plane to visit my folks. I had bought tickets for both of us and had them in my hand when they told me there was no seat for my son. Excuse me? I have a paid for ticket that says he does. And then they wanted to charge me for changing my flight so both of us could travel. Oh there was hell to pay. Idjits, lol! I'm nice but a rock wall on some issues. Kid and I flew first class that flight. :-)

Please tell me your friend convinced the airline to put her and her children on the same flight... I mean seriously, what was that airline thinking???And, yes, that is some crappy linguistics... Seems like we're surrounded by it these days...

We had the same issue when we took a US airline to SF from Canada. Four of us (out of five) had been bumped off the flight because it was overbooked. My kids were in tears because it meant their spring break trip would either be cancelled or would only be a day or two long. Eventually the airline found four volunteers to give up their seats. We decided not to use anymore US airlines after that.

The airline lingo and that of some other companies/industries makes me crazy. I dealt with a situation today that kept on the phone with my bank for a good 10 minutes longer than necessary because we were obviously not speaking the same "language".

The airline linguistics make perfect sense to me. They can't have overbooked the flight if they negate the existence of your friend's children. They "removed" the bothersome extra 2 passengers, thus enabling them to deny that they were ever overbooked at all.

Perhaps I can solve my school's funding problems by the same reasoning. If we don't have 100% students passing the state test, we lose our funding. Therefore, if I "remove" students who fail the test (because they don't speak English, for example) then who can say that I didn't have 100% compliance?